From that moment on, I made a commitment to question my own thoughts more carefully. When someone doesn’t reply to my message, instead of jumping to conclusions, I now tell myself, “Maybe they’re busy, or they just forgot. I’ll remind them later if it’s important.” It’s a small insignificant shift, but it’s been life-changing.

If someone really does act rudely or suddenly becomes hostile towards me, the first thing I do is check whether I might have said or done something hurtful to them (this isn't self-blame, but I want to hold myself accountable if I’ve unintentionally caused harm). If the answer is no, that's enough for me. They can act however they want, and it has nothing to do with me. I can choose how I perceive it—it’s a choice, and the power lies within me, not in them or their actions.

Here’s a little formula I’ve started living by—and I’m sharing it with you, not as advice but as something that works for me: If it doesn’t cost me money, physical harm, or detrimental betrayal, I’m not going to let it ruin my day. Period.

Think about it. How often do we blow things out of proportion that really don’t matter? Getting angry or upset over small things (like someone cutting in line at the grocery store or in a public restroom) is like handing over your peace of mind on a silver platter. Not to mention, victimizing yourself is definitely not cute (or healthy). Also, because I'm generally lazy, if something can help me be more chill, then I’ll take double of that!

This whole process has been about protecting my energy. And if that means people think I’ve changed—well, I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m no longer interested in holding onto things that drain me, whether it’s toxic thoughts, friendships, or even my own self-limiting beliefs.

So if you’re on a similar journey, know that you’re not alone. We all struggle with habits that are hard to break, but the first step is simply questioning yourself. I hope you recognize the fine line between condemning or blaming yourself and simply examining yourself to grow. When you do explore the depths of your mind (with a GPS in hand, so you don’t get lost in spiralling negative thoughts), the answers might surprise you.

PS: I'm still a work in progress too, but it doesn’t hurt to share this tip so we can keep each other company along the journey :)

♠ I think you tend to focus too much on your ideals and pressure yourself by thinking, I have to be this kind of person! Even when those ideals are, in fact, taken from someone else and not from your own thoughts and experiences. 

♠ When you’re having a hard time, it’s natural to feel like you’re having the hardest time in the world. And it’s not selfish to feel that way.

♠ Your perception of reality is so polarised and extreme. you’re only able to see within the framework of ‘Everything about us is the same’ or ‘Everything about us is different.’

♠ You should try to stop yourself from reflexively falling back on thinking patterns you normally default to.

♠ I don’t think it’s a problem that needs fixing. It’s all a matter of how you see yourself.

♠ You’ve got to stop falling into the binary trap of thinking you’re either all-ordinary or all-special. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are not the only ways we think in black and white.

♠ Your emptiness and fear are all mixed up, and you’re asking for help to defend yourself. But if you depend on another person for help, it’ll satisfy you only for a moment, and you may not be able to stand on your own two feet later.

♠ Do you think every behaviour falls into a category of, ‘They did this because they hate me’ or ‘They did this because they like me’? The whole point of not liking your friend’s behaviour means you don’t like her behaviour, not your friend as a person. But right now, you keep interpreting every behaviour exhibited by your friend as rejection. Your mind immediately goes to the most extreme explanation instead of stopping to think of the many other reasons your friend could be doing what she’s doing. You keep applying these extreme standards to others. In effect, it’s your own thoughts that are torturing you. Learn to differentiate the parts from the whole. Just because you like one thing about a person, you don’t need to like everything about them. And just because you don’t like one thing about a person, it doesn’t mean the person as a whole isn’t worth your time. I think you should get in the habit of thinking differently.

♠ Love comes in different shapes, and I shouldn’t judge someone else’s love by my own standards.

♠ Many people think they’re the foremost authority on themselves, but you should be more sceptical. You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Do I really know myself well?’

♠ Your very real problem is that you bring this same judgmental attitude on yourself.

♠ No one was looking down on me except myself.

♠ I feel like I talk about the same problem every time. And you always give me the same answers. I don’t change myself, which is why the same problems keep coming up.

♠ Your perspective of yourself is so narrow and self-critical that you’re unable to see things from a wider perspective, and so you goad yourself into choosing just one angle, which is the easiest way out.

♠ I hope you will listen to a certain overlooked and different voice within you. Because the human heart, even when it wants to die, quite often wants at the same time to eat some tteokbokki, too.

♠ Meeting someone who moves your heart, writing something until it moves the hearts of others, listening to music and watching movies that depict love–I want to always be motivated by love. If pure rationality keeps forcing itself into the spaces in between, I shall lose the shine and comfort of my life–which is why I want to be an emotionally bright person, even if it means becoming impoverished in terms of rationality. I want to hold hands and march with those who feel similarly to me.

♠ I often look for books that are like medicine, that fit my situation and my thoughts, and I read them over and over again until the pages are tattered, underlining everything, and still the book will have something to give me. Books never tire of me. And in time they present a solution, quietly waiting until I am fully healed. That’s one of the nicest things about books.

 
Bauman dives into how consumerism has overshadowed the old-school work ethic, with his historical and philosophical take on it. This book is not an easy read because it can feel a bit dry and like you're reading someone’s lengthy thesis.

Bauman begins by discussing how the work ethic became significant during industrialization. In the past, people valued their "workmanship" and preferred leisure over unnecessary labour. But industrial times demanded a different attitude. Factory owners wanted to make workers dependent on them, and with a little help from the government, they pushed for a complete societal shift. Artisans were left out in the cold as factory work became the new norm.

Fast forward to today, and we've shifted from a society of producers to a society of consumers. Satisfaction isn't the goal anymore; it's all about the thrill of wanting more, sugar-coated as a motivation to hustle harder. In the past, your class determined your identity, but now, you build it yourself through the choices you make in the marketplace. More choices mean more freedom, right? Well, not exactly. This so-called freedom is just another illusion created by market forces.

Living in a consumer society means we detest having our choices limited, so we gravitate towards deregulation and neoliberalism. Work, devoid of any real joy, loses its value; and come payday, you’d simply spend your hard-earned money on unnecessary expenditures. Does that imply that the time and effort invested in work are all in vain? To fill the jobs nobody wants, we recreate a survival scenario, but this time, there's no noble work ethic to cling to. Instead, the poor are viewed as inadequate consumers. Society no longer feels the need to uplift them but rather blames them for their situation, branding them as an irredeemable "underclass."

Bauman’s empathy for the poor shines through. They're often labelled as lazy, but he shows they're actually victims of a broken system. Work ethics, Bauman argues, were invented to force people into factory jobs and now serve to blame the unemployed for their plight. With globalization, local governments can't do much to help since capital moves freely across borders. Modern society deals with the poor by marginalizing, criminalizing, and segregating them. They're not seen as potential workers anymore but as failures in the consumer game.

One of Bauman’s more optimistic ideas is universal basic income, something C. Offe also talks about. This would shift our focus from employment to basic rights and protections. But even Bauman knows this solution is a bit too optimistic, given the power of global capital.

Reading "Work, Consumerism and the New Poor" is quite a rollercoaster. Bauman sometimes suggests that work ethics were a grand conspiracy, which seems like a stretch without solid proof. Personally, I'd prefer to see it as a collective societal belief disguised as the norm, rather than a brainwashing tactic used by capitalists. Perhaps to some extent it is, but ultimately, it comes down to whether individuals would simply accept and believe in this belief.

Given that this book was written almost 20 years ago, some parts feel dated, but its message still resonates strongly. Consumerism has only sunk its claws deeper into our lives. Consider this: from housing to healthcare to our daily routines, systems are designed to extract every last penny from us. We're essentially primed to compete for the top, leveraging our education and careers, yet often find ourselves ensnared by rising costs. Consequently, our lives become a ceaseless pursuit of better homes, better cars, and so forth. It's a cycle of chasing bigger, better, and higher price tags, often with more debts piled on.

This book makes it clear that our societal structures are choices, even when they feel like inescapable traps. So it comes full circle: when it's all about choices, what are you choosing for yourself? Because nobody is pointing a gun at your head. There is no black or white, good or wrong within this equation. It’s about where one’s personal values lie. Having previously worked in the retail banking industry for two years has definitely taught me a valuable lesson on this— one’s bank accounts and transactions often speak volumes more about them than the words that come out of their mouths.

"Work, Consumerism and the New Poor" peels back the layers of consumer society, exposing the harsh realities beneath. Bauman's insights into consumerism and the marginalization of the poor are still relevant, pushing us to rethink what we value and how we define success. "Work, Consumerism and the New Poor" peels back the layers of consumer society, exposing the harsh realities beneath. Bauman's insights into consumerism and the marginalization of the poor remain relevant, urging us to reconsider what we value and how we define success.

I wouldn’t recommend this book as a must-read for everyone because, as mentioned, getting through the entire book consumed a lot of focused energy from my end due to its lengthy narrations. Unless you are truly interested in the history of economics, I think a practical takeaway I could share with anyone (even those who are not that financially savvy) is to be conscious of why and where you are spending your money. Remember, there is no right or wrong judgment here; it’s all about your choices and how aware you are of your true intentions behind them. Simple and straightforward.

 
As I sit down to pen this heartfelt note, I find myself overwhelmed with a mixed bunch of feelings. Now that you both are no longer (physically) here, I can’t help but reminisce about the day when I brought you two tiny furballs back from the pet shop on the 7th of October 2021.

From the moment you both scampered into my life, a burst of cuteness and warmth enveloped my heart every single day, without fail, even during the moments when you drove me insane.

Since day one, I couldn't resist sharing daily snippets of your adorable antics on social media. Little did I know that your charm would ripple out, influencing friends and followers to embark on their own journeys of hamster companionship. Just like that, you girls indirectly gave other hamsters a home that they could call their own too!

Many have questioned my choice, wondering if the frequent heartbreaks accompanying the short lifespan of hamsters would deter me from welcoming another furry friend into our home. To them, I say this: the essence of life, be it for humans or hamsters, lies in the inevitable journey towards the final stage – death. It's a bittersweet reality illustrated beautifully in The Little Prince, where the process of "taming" transcends the fear of bidding goodbyes. Yes, tears may fall, and a few days of sadness may linger in the wake of farewells, but these are the small prices we pay for the immeasurable joy of giving a furry ball a home.

Although you girls might have had a short time with me, your little pawprints will always be on my heart, forever.

PS: Please stop fighting one another in heaven!

Also, may I introduce the new kiddo - Fibo. 

或许是随着岁月的流逝，我渐渐发现，纯粹的理性并不能完全解决所有问题。有些事情并不总是那么容易用逻辑来解释，有时候感性的一面才能更好地理解和体验。在与他人相处时，感性地表达能让人更加亲近，也能增进彼此之间的理解和信任。

As we slowly finished our food, we caught up with one another’s recent life updates. In our conversation, there was a part where she asked me, “do you think people are honest with themselves?”

That’s a very interesting question and I was taken aback because I often have similar thoughts but I’ve never asked it out loud in a conversation as bravely as she did. Afraid of being judged as a weirdo or also afraid that I might make people uncomfortable, I usually only read about such topics on Reddit or watch Youtube videos about them.

I replied, “No, I don’t think so”. 

Humans are fascinating creatures. I can’t help but wonder how God set his auto programming when designing humans. How complicated would His system or software be to create homo sapiens along with their individual emotions, psychology, and personality. Because I find it so darn fascinating that humans have this “talent” of lying to themselves, which whatever humans do actually stem from psychology – isn’t it?

Mind you, I’m not coming from a place of “holier-than-thou” but rather I’m a real-life example. 

The thing is though…we humans talk about other people/we talk about ourselves, but we seldom talk to ourselves. Even if we do, it’s more about finding excuses or coming up with seemingly rational rationales to protect ourselves from anything that our brain perceives as dangerous or discomfort. 

Self-awareness is the key here. Oftentimes, I feel this word has been thrown around too excessively that people don’t even take the time to reflect on themselves or even to figure out what this self-awareness deal is all about anyway. 

Or rather, people don’t even know who they are, let alone be honest with themselves. I mean…think about it, if you don’t know who you are, what are the things that you like/dislike, what are the things that you truly desire and would like to go after without fear, what are your strengths and weaknesses, etc, it is hard to be honest with yourself. 

When I first stepped into the corporate world, I was so fixated on buying material items. Not just things per se but branded items. Thank god I wasn’t too reckless with my finances back then but looking back, I could’ve/should’ve/would’ve done a lot better. 

I had this rule, or should I say distorted mindset that “now that I am a working adult in the corporate world, I have to only wear and use branded things so people can take me seriously”. 

How pathetic I was back then (in hindsight)! However, when I was within that state, I had 1000 reasons to support my theory, such as:
- these are investments in myself
- life is about working hard and buying all things you like
- what is the use of saving money if you will never spend it on the things you like

There were many underlying issues for me to act this way, but I did not have the awareness to notice let alone admit them to myself.

✎ I was feeling lost in life, so I used “work hard, shop hard” as a form of motivation to have something to look forward to.

✎ I had low self-esteem, so I thought all these brand names could act as a shiny armor to protect me from my imaginary condemnation coming from everyone that I could be meeting.

If I could identify the root cause back then, I surely wouldn’t have bought so many bags and clothes that I ended up throwing and donating, as well as the time spent shopping. I could have been richer by a few grands by now if I could reverse those unwise spending. Because at the end of it all, it’s not about the physical objects themselves that I was chasing after, but a specific feeling that I associated upon purchasing those objects, such as feeling controlled, feeling the adrenaline rush even if it’s temporary, feeling great about myself when I wore it for the first time and so on.

Another way people lie to themselves might not be intentional as it is a form of self-protection that was stimulated by the brain. Because humans are programmed to avoid danger, risk, discomfort, and pain. I was a victim of this too most of the time – from small to big things. 

It might sound like procrastination for the “small” things, but the underlying theory is the same.

✎ I do not have the attention span and time to read routinely.
Puhleaseeee, you have time to scroll through Instagram reels watching cats and hamsters for 2 hours straight, you are saying you don’t have the time.

✎ I’m feeling tired today, so let’s just skip the workout.
I end up watching 3 movies in a row till midnight after telling myself that excuse.

(Believe me, I know I’m not the only one with this whole I-do-not-have-time bullshit. You could be guilty too in some areas of your lives. But hey, there’s no shame in this alright?)

✎ Oh, not forgetting my biggest one:
I am not ready to trade (forex) because I haven’t learnt enough – even though I spent so much time and effort making notes, watching videos, and learning from different mentors and friends. I’ve been trying to learn how to swim while keeping myself dry by reading a book. Good job Fion.

✎ Another big one that cost me a fortune, literally:
As a short-term trader (not an investor) cutting losses quickly is the number one rule in this survival game. However, I often ended up trying to persuade myself to not do that with some seemingly logical reasons, such as:
 “This is a fundamentally good company, it’s fine to hold onto the stock until it comes back up.”
 “The overall trend is still healthy, I’ll remove the stop loss and see how it goes.”
Traders do not cling onto something for the long term, that’s an investment thing. I brought snorkeling equipment to scuba dive. That’s why I drowned in the sea.

Thankfully, I learnt my painful lesson last year. I have been disciplining myself this year after taking a hiatus – because those lies that told myself ruined me not just in trading but my self-confidence and self-esteem. The domino effect of not being honest with yourself is deadly. No pun intended. I could even use the word 'literally' at this point because it nearly ruined me. 

And let’s be honest about this: When you are trying to avoid the short-term discomfort, pain, loss, or anything that comes with a negative feeling, you aren’t really avoiding it entirely. It still bugs you somewhere within your head. For me, it was losing sleep, feeling lethargic every day, regular headaches, insomnia, and occasional panic attacks. 

Anything that costs you your health and sleep means it’s costing you too much. Sometimes, it also badly affects the people around you – people who you should be showering love and care for but because you are too blinded by your own bullshit, you aren’t giving them the best version of you. On the contrary, most people leave the worst of the worst version of themselves for their loved ones.

Bet you have heard things like these:
✎ I can’t change because that's how I always am. 
So, does that excuse automatically give you a right to speak in an inconsiderate manner, hurting people's feelings yet condemning people for being too sensitive? 

✎ I can't take care of my diet. It's just too hard. 
That statement translates into: I'm happy being fat and I will condemn whoever tells me I am fat (even if that person's a doctor) and tell people that this is self-love. 

In conjunction with this topic, I'll quote my friend @pohhuexp (on Instagram) who's a Precision Nutrition Certificed Coach:
Body positivity is loving yourself no matter what society thinks - you don't need abs to be sexy and healthy. The part I disagree with body positivity is when people use it as an excuse to be overweight and call it healthy. Being overweight isn't healthy. It's fine if you personally choose and prefer to be at a certain weight, but don't promote that as healthy scientifically, it's not. 

✎ I will do anything to get my ex back because I love him/her. Then, you proceed to do 'ugly' things like threatening, begging pathetically, harassing over the phone, stalking on social media everyday. 
I challenge you to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, "is this love? am I really acting out of love?" 

I read this quote somewhere that says:
Saying “this is who I always am” reflects a person’s EQ, stupidity, and selfishness. It leaves the other party in a state of “take it or leave it” because you are not mature enough to deal with your own shit. Address the elephant in the room by being honest with yourself, not by protecting your stupid ego at the expense of your loved ones, or even yourself! 

Carve a bit of time out daily, sit in silence alone and ask yourself:

"Am I truly fine with all these?" 

"Do I love this version of myself?"

"Am I genuinely happy?"

Dr. Joe Dispenza said that one thing humans don’t pay enough attention to is the skill to control one’s mind and thoughts. Like training a horse, you can’t let it run wildly – you’d get thrown off the horseback for sure. You gotta sit it down, tame it and then command it to listen to you. 

At least hamsters are innocently adorable. But being dishonest with yourself is nowhere near cute. That is a hard pill that I am learning to swallow too on an everyday basis. When in doubt, I’ll look at them and think “I can do a lot better”.